WIP Wednesday

Over the weekend, I made progress on my wonky stars quilt top from last week's WIP Wednesday.

I also made a really excellent and high quality design wall, by taping a couple of spare strips of batting to the wall with painter's tape.  It did the job though, and I finished the quilt top - it has ended up at about 40" wide and 49" high.

I am really really happy with this quilt so far, and I have the backing and binding fabrics chosen already. My plan for this week is to baste this quilt, so I can at least get started with the quilting on the weekend.  Wish me luck, because I have work functions on both Thursday and Friday nights!

What are you working on this week?

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced:

A Lovely Year of Finishes - March Goal

I thought it was about time I set my March goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes.  My goals for January and February were both "gimmes" - things I was close to finishing and knew I would have done before the end of the month.

This one is a much bigger challenge.  Literally. 



Regular readers are probably sick of seeing this quilt top by now.  I finished it in October last year, but it is still hanging around (again, literally, it is hanging over the bannister at my parents' house) unquilted.  The size of the thing (84" by 87") has me daunted. 

I did come up with a cunning plan to try and talk my local long-arm quilter into teaching me how to quilt it, but to no avail.  I am determined to quilt it myself, so I have come up with another cunning plan - I will get it basted by my local long-arm quilter (no pins!), and then just go for it.

This quilt is for my youngest brother, and his birthday is in early April, so I am setting myself the goal of completing the quilting by the end of March.  I will give myself the first couple of days of April to finish the binding.

Phew, I'm glad March is a long month...

Minky and linen baby playmat

 What do you think - did I use enough pins?

No, I didn't lose my mind.  There is method to my madness, as you will see in a minute.

Yup, its the dreaded minky.   So sweet, so soft, so stretchy.  (For anyone not familiar with minky, who thinks I have turned into a raving loon, it is a fluffy and very soft fabric.  It's a knit, so it does have some stretch to it, although its not really super stretchy).

This is a little baby playmat that I put together to give my stitching friend Cathy at her baby shower this weekend.  I had been admiring the print fabric for a while, but it seems aimed at babies, but is printed on a slightly coarse linen blend fabric, so I wasn't sure what I would do with it.  I had also been thinking about trying to back a quilt with minky after seeing the Remixed Geese Quilt from Erica at Kitchen Table Quilting and reading her thoughts on working with minky.  At some point I put two and two together and realised that this was the perfect opportunity to use the circus print fabric and try minky on a small scale project, plus the blues are perfect for Cathy's baby boy.

I have to say that I am really pleased with how it turned out.  Putting in all those pins took AGES (and my mum helped a lot), but I didn't have any puckering or shifting issues when quilting.  I used a serpentine stitch on my machine with my walking foot, and I think it looks really nice.

I did start quilting straight lines, but I got halfway through the first one and my bobbin ran out of thread, and I turned the quilt over (I quilted with the minky on the back) and really hated how it was looking.  At that point I unpicked the stitching and started again with the serpentine stitch - I think it looks much much better and works nicely with the dots on the fabric.

I did "give" this quilt to Cathy at her baby shower, but I didn't have time to properly stitch down the binding, so I just tacked it down (using red thread, as you can see).

I will stitch down the binding over the next few days, so it is ready for our next stitching group meeting.  I am also thinking about making a little strap with velcro so that it can be rolled up and carried easily - I'm thinking it might be useful to put on the floor to put baby on when Cathy is out visiting or something like that.

Also, expect to see this binding again - I turned a full metre of fabric into bias binding and this quilt didn't even make a dent in the huge roll I ended up with!

Have you ever tried sewing with minky?  How did it go, and do you think I went overboard with the pins?

Linking up with:

Saturday Cat Words of Wisdom #8

Before / After

"Take a little time to experiment with editing your photos - even simple software can transform an image."  Ivy

(This is a picture I snapped on my iphone and edited using Picfx and instagram.  If you are on instagram, come say hi - I am adrianneonthewindyside, or leave me a comment with your instagram name and I will track you down.) 

Does your pet have something to say? If you would like to see your pet on a future Saturday Cat Words of Wisdom post, send me an email (adrianneonthewindyside at gmail dot com) with the photo you would like featured, some words (wise, witty, or just plain silly) that relate to the photo, your pet's name, and a link to your blog/flickr stream/website.

Fresh Sewing Day

Hello March!  It seems like the year is flying by already.

February was a reasonably productive month for me, although I only finished three projects which doesn't sound like that much...  Behind the scenes, I did piece the front and back of another quilt, so that makes me feel a bit better.  You can find the links for the blog posts for my three finished projects below the mosaic.

1. Starting small pouch, 2. La Pinata, 3. Gender neutral baby quilt

I wanted to let you know I made a Facebook page for my blog.  You can find it by clicking on the Facebook icon in the top right corner.  I am keeping it up to date with my blog posts and I will try and share interesting bits and pieces there as well.

I have a quite a few exciting things coming up in March - I am participating in my first blog hop (and it looks like a great one!), I have a lot of finishes planned to meet all my first quarter Finish-Along goals, I have a new tutorial in the works AND I will hit my 150th blog post (keep your eye peeled for a giveaway!).

I hope you had a great February, and have a fun and exciting March coming up soon.  I'd love to know what you've been up to and what you have planned.

Linking up with Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts: